50' In the Air
by Caltrop
Summary: Basically, humans eradicated all animals. Then came along some interdimensional species called pokémon who the radicals weren't fond of. Naturally, WWIII broke out between the pokémon and the humans, and I get stuck in an attic with eleven others. Like, what did you expect? Anthropomorphic (in terms of bone structure, solely).
1. The War

At one point, the world was peaceful, calm, and without war. This period of time was brief, however, as no single pair of nations can not be at war with each other at any given time. Yet, that period of peace was real, despite the well-known rules of coexisting cultures. Sadly, its brevity was inevitable.

Then, sometime around the late 2080s came the Industrial 2.0 Era. All animals were indirectly eradicated with the total consumption of natural resources. So shamelessly did the humans put an end to all species, vertebrates and invertebrates alike, mammals and reptiles, birds and amphibians, et cetera...

Then came along a concerned scientist from Port Euwin. His name was Mark Chan. Though he was impressed by what the human race had done, he was unnerved by the absence of animals. He could cope with the unnatural oxygen that the industrial machinery produces, but he felt hollow without his loyal St. Bernard at his side while he worked. Years passed as he grew more and more into an frail and empty man, but finally, he did what most humans would think utterly impossible. By manipulating millions of dollars worth of dark matter, or some kind of quantum mechanics, he discovered a multiversial realm in which he was satisfied with. Chan tore through hundreds of dimensions until he found this specific one, and then, with a mere flick of a switch, the universe and the multiverse became one.

What stood before Chan in the product chamber was a brown and salmon-colored quadruped. Fellow scientists looked from Chan's elated face to the creature. In their eyes, they saw an abomination from Hell. They saw a dog with horns and a pronged tail. In a biblical sense (in those days, religion was most of the world's monarch), the creature was Lucifer in the form of a mutt. Chan called it a "hound," naming it after the hunting dog. (Shortly after witnessing the hound spit flames from its mouth at the coworkers in exasperation, Chan decided to change its name to the houndoom.)

At first, the creatures that the machines and dark matter produced were neutral with the humans. After a tense moment or two of panic, the creatures would grow used to their new world. Chan's coworkers deliberately overlooked the beings, though they really were an unnerving sight.

Before they were let loose into the city of Port Euwin, Mark Chan ran plenty of tests on the creatures, to make sure they really were safe. These tests mostly included prodding the creatures with sticks in quite an amateurish way. The scientists were terrified out of their wits, you see. The creatures gnawed, burned, disintegrated, and thrashed at the sticks, but they didn't show this kind of aggression towards the humans. They were...somewhat playful, like newborn pups, but with laser vision.

Chan referred to the multiverse-dwellers as animals for a short amount of time, before the fellow scientists justified that these beings were not at all "animals." Thus, the poking and prodding experiments had earned them the name "pokemen." After his coworkers insisted that these beings were not of "man" in any way, the disgruntled Mark Chan altered the name to "pokemon," and after making some adjustments to help the name roll off tongue better, the name was adorned and finalized.

Pokémon.

These creatures were intelligent beyond belief. Some could even use the human language through the transmission of self-translating thoughts. It was unbelievable. Chan had turned this unnaturally produced air into tangible and sentient beings, through the power of alchemy—alchemy of technological proportion.

The pokémon were deemed safe, and were let loose into the city. An abundance of the pokémon were killed immediately, but that wasn't a problem for Chan and his machinery. There were also several human deaths of which the pokémon were responsible for, but they were all heart attacks. No pokémon-on-human interaction was really accounted for. Soon, pokémon flourished and were found in most of North America. The influx of pokémon had to go through what the original animals went through, like being transported by ship to different continents.

The humans were, for the most part, indifferent about the pokémon. These creatures could sustain themselves because they were able to adapt to the industrious, technologically-influenced wasteland that is Planet Earth. The original animals couldn't do that.

Some people were still a bit edgy about sharing their earth with the new inhabitants.

Chan kept a journal, which was later obtained and popularized by a journalist:

_Congress passed a law. How this law was passed is inconceivable to me. The religious radicals are displeased with my creations, and they want so much for them to be exterminated, or at least "humanized." Congress, which holds a rather large amount of these radicals, was generous enough to allow me to keep my creations, on one condition. I must anthropomorphize the pokémon, to suit the radicals' needs. They think that, with a muscle and bone system paralleling a human's, my creatures will be a little closer to us and therefore God. This ruins the purpose of creating the creatures in the first place, but I will do what I must to help these wondrous beings flourish. If I can find a meta verse that suits their needs, I'll be very lucky._

And Mark Chan was lucky indeed. However, in his mind, he was the one who now saw the creations as abominations, for they were now structurally identical to the humans. Of course, they emulate the human's anatomy, but are still able to summon meteors from the sky when they please, so Chan couldn't complain.

Later, in the year 2091, things took a turn for the worst. The religious radical portion of the earth argued that pokémon were unnatural (despite their new bipedal anatomy) and that humans don't need replacements for the animals that once were. They claimed that pokémon were not of God, but of something unidentifiable within the intangible outer-realms.

So, obviously, war broke out, ending the short-lived period of peace. It was a war not only against pokémon activists, but against pokémon themselves. Brazil was against pokémon, while Japan was for. Iraq was against, while France was for. Armenia was against, while Germany was for. Sadly, the population of countries who were against pokémon dominated those that were for.

Mark Chan was executed on January 12th, 2092. The houndoom, his first creation of which he had kept to replace his St. Bernard, which was one of the last quadrupeds alive, had been shot before its owner's eyes. Soon enough, the world was full of inexplicable violence...

World War III commences.

50' IN THE AIR:

THE DIARY OF FLEANCE

The following excerpts have been taken from my diary and greatly enhanced. Or refined, rather. (Please note that the story has not been embellished in any way.) This is because there are certain parts of my diary where the writing is incomprehensible. I was very feeble when writing it, and also my paws weren't made to use pencils. At some points, however, there will be snippets of verbatim from the book.

This story will hopefully help illustrate the hardships of hiding away during WWIII.

My dearest thanks goes to Timothy Morrison, who had sheltered many pokémon, including me, in his attic...though he wasn't able to save all of us. Thank you regardless.

* * *

Note: OC submission is closed lolol. I don't own Pokémon, btw.


	2. Before the Deportation

I lived with a roommate named Tod. We lived happily under the "ownership" of an old lady. Her apartment was always well-kept and comforting, and she herself was a very pleasant woman to be around.

She left the news channel on on her television constantly. For a while, I just figured she didn't know how to use it properly. However, I caught her peering over her paper—her newspaper—and at the television now and then. There was always something happening on the news channel that I was always unable to comprehend. Whatever was going on out there, in the world, it seemed to concern our owner an awful lot.

I asked my roommate what he thought about it. Tod, a rather witty manectric, scratched the golden, pyramidal structure atop his head and replied, "I heard they're moving us to some exclusive ghettos soon."

That made no sense to me whatsoever. "Ghettos? Exclusive—just for pokémon, you mean? Who's moving us?"

Tod gave me a serious look. "You know," he said. "The humans."

"The humans? Our owner wouldn't have anything to do with this," I argued in disbelief. It couldn't be true. Tod was always a jokester. But something about his stare, how it seemed to bore through me, told me that he knew what he was talking about. He turned back to what he was doing and I soon reverted to my state of denial. "No. Nah." I returned to my own doings and neither of us shared a word for the rest of the evening.

The manectric always discovered some pretty disturbing facts from his sources. I was, of course, left in the shadows a lot. He would always come home wearing a smirk of both disgust and amusement. "Huh, I did _not_ know that. Did _not_ know that," he would say to himself.

I'd badger him. He was short-tempered, and did not take kindly to my constant pestering.

"Cut it out, Flea." He'd pop me on the head. "I'll tell you sooner or later." Once, he told me about how he was originally supposed to walk on fours.

"Bullocks," I proclaimed.

"I kid you not, kiddo. Some of us were born into this world with four legs."

"Then what happened, Tod? Why aren't you on four legs?"

"My species and many more were, for lack of better words, edited. That's all I know. We were edited."

"But why?"

Tod chuckled, taking a moment to look me in the eye. "You'll find that humans don't like anything to be unique. Fascists. Hah."

I rolled my eyes. "Yeah, okay."

Months later, I was walking across the living room when I noticed an unusually harsh amount of distress displayed on the television. A human was babbling hysterically to the camera. Pokémon were walking in lines in the background, followed by some fairly official-looking humans, who seemed to be forcefully guiding them.

I muttered to myself and paid no more attention.

"Fleance," a raspy voice called from across the room.

I turned to the old lady.

"Where's Tod?"

I shrugged.

She had a serious, yet sad look on her face. She sighed and shook her head. There was a knock on the door. "Fleance, you know the pantry?"

I raised my brow and nodded apprehensively.

"I want you to get inside it and shut the lights."

"Uh?"

"Get in it, and keep quiet," she breathed sternly. She then got up and made her way slowly to the door. She glared at me and motioned to the kitchen.

I backed away slowly and did as I was told.

"I always fancied you," I heard her say softly.

The entire time I was balled up in the pantry, I was trying to piece together what she had said while listening intently.

"Census report," came the voice of a male adult.

"Oh... But I thought the census was taken only two years ago," my owner said in a shaky voice of which I had never heard her use before. It was almost as if she was toying with our company.

"No ma'am. How many you holding in here?"

"Why, what an odd question to ask," she replied hoarsely. "Just me."

There was a shuffling, followed by the sound of boots on wood. My owner gasped. Suddenly, it was as if the house was full of feet clopping about. The flurry of footsteps scared me to no extent, especially when they would approach. The pantry door was never opened though.

I don't know what those people were searching for, but the way my owner prompted me into the closet made me feel as though they were searching for _me_! A few minutes went by until I heard the man's voice again.

"What's this, ma'am?"

"Oh. That. That is a picture, I believe."

"Yes, indeed it is. But in the picture, and correct me if I'm wrong, I see you standing next to a manectric and a... What is that?"

"Th-those are my nephew's friends. I live by myself," my owner claimed with force.

"Fine. Can we speak to you for a moment outside?"

I remember sitting in that pantry for at least two hours after that. My heart was pounding the entire time, and I kept waiting for my owner to return. She never did. The only reason I left the pantry was because my claustrophobia didn't allow me to hide any longer. I drove my fists through the slants in the wood and crawled out, panting for air. When I collected myself, I noticed how desolate the house had become.

I spent most of the day searching throughout the house, looking for a familiar face. Not a soul did I find. Eventually, I gathered enough courage to go outside. The streets were wrecked beyond belief. At the end of the road, I could see some pokémon, marching along in my direction, heading from the cul-de-sac. They were pushed into a van, one by one. The van roared into life and began making its way towards me.

I heard the door close. I whirled around to see I had clumsily locked myself out. (I scorned myself relentlessly for being so oblivious later on.) The menacing van was approaching quickly.

I don't know why I ran, but something deep down told me I'd be in grave danger if those official-looking humans got their hands on me. I ran up the empty sidewalk, occasionally looking behind me, fearing the worst. The van was close.

While I was looking behind, I ran into something big. I saw stars for a moment, and when they cleared up, I saw the silhouette of a human looming over me. It wrapped its hands around my arms and pulled me to my feet. I was then dragged down a small alley and into a building, storing an all-consuming darkness within. I nearly pissed myself, I tell you what.

I screamed. A hand gripped my snout.

"Quiet, quiet," a voice whispered. "Follow me." The person grabbed my paw and led me through the darkness. How could this person see in the dark?

The person opened a door and brightness immediately flooded my dilated pupils. I hissed at the light. The person laughed.

"Don't you mock me," I growled. When I opened my eyes, I saw a large, warehouse-like room and a human male before me. His attire was casual, and unlike what the menacing humans outside were wearing.

"Now, now, no need to snarl," he told me. "I don't suppose you know what's happening, right? Or maybe you do, I wouldn't know." He held his hand out to me. I hesitated before responding with a weak handshake. "My name's Tim." He ruffled my head, making me flinch and back away. He stared at me, disappointed, before continuing. "I knew your owner. Very kind lady."

He _knew_ my owner?

Tim sighed and wiped his face. "I'm sorry this is happening, Fleance. Some of us just believe in an absolute planet with an absolute race. Luckily for you, I don't believe in that." He chuckled and shook his head. "I've already made this speak about ten times today," he groaned.

He made that speech ten times?

"Follow me." Tim led me through corridor after corridor, stairwell after stairwell. On the fourth floor, he motioned me to stop abruptly. The room we had entered was huge, with steel beams popping up here and there from the redwood floor, supporting the ceiling. Two of the walls were composed almost entirely of glass, overlooking the stunning, yet industrially unpleasant cityscape. "We don't want someone to see you, so I advise you not to enter the studio unless you have to."

I had no idea what he was talking about. He never told me what was happening, or where he was taking me.

Tim peered through the glass and looked around. Shrugging, he took my paw and continued guiding me, but much more hastily than before. After traversing across the vast studio, we came to a door. "This is the library." Inside, there was a countless amount of shelves, all shelving an impressive amount of books to behold. At the far side of the room, there was a typical shelf full of books, but behind them there was no wall. Tim pulled the shelf with all his might, so that a small crevice was made. He squeezed through. I followed suit, awe-struck.

He closed the shelf after I entered the nook. I was in the dark again. He fumbled for a light switch. Once he found it, my pupils were, yet again, assaulted by light. It's a problem I have with my fast-pace, rapidly adjusting pupils. It can be annoying sometimes.

I followed Tim up a very narrow set of stairs. They ended at a trapdoor above. He unlocked the latch and opened the door and climbed up. I was really reluctant to follow him this entire time, seeing as I didn't know who the heck he was. Also, I was dying to return to my house, but I figured I wouldn't be able to get inside anyway unless my owner returned with her keys, so I went with the flow for the time being.

We were in the attic. The fifth floor. His house was huge. Was it his house?

After opening a final door, I was brought into the Sanctuary.* It resembled the library below, but it wasn't as dense with shelves and was nice and roomy. The ceiling was close, unlike the high-vaulted ceiling in the studio. The ceiling also narrowed down at the corners, like the roof of an old Victorian house or something of that sort. There were three small windows at each wall, except for the wall with the door we had entered from. The attic had a really musty smell to it, much like the smell that filled my owner's house. Underneath a lamp, a pipe rested atop a small coffee table, so I assumed it was responsible for the smell.

"We have another one," Tim laughed. "You lot better be nice." He patted me on the back. With a raised eyebrow, it was then I noticed the room was full of other pokémon. "Make yourself at home, and for the love of God, keep it down up here," Tim whispered harshly, before proceeding out the door.

All was quiet. I looked from one pokémon to another, assessing them all by the way they stared blankly back at me. They were frowning. Some of them looked away from me and to the floor, where they looked on in sorrow, maybe fiddling with their tails or playing with their shoelaces.

"Uh, hello," I stammered.

"Hey, new guy!" said a rather exuberant glaceon. She approached me and beamed wildly. "It's a pleasure to meet you."

"Hey, sit down and be quiet." A charmeleon stood and rebuked the glaceon with a rough yank of her arm. "What did Tim tell you?"

"I know, I just—"

"What did Tim just tell you, just now? What did he say?"

"He said to be quiet—"

"Then be quiet, before they find us and send us off."

I was overcome with the reluctance to introduce myself any further. I spent the rest of the evening among the other pokémon, sitting silently, keeping to myself. It was a long two hours before I finally fell asleep.

(Keep in mind that this is before I acquired my diary.)

When I woke up, I was in the same place that I fell asleep, surprisingly enough. I had expected to end up back in my bed, at my house. But unfortunately, the events that happened the day before were all too real. I was, per usual, left in the shadows again. But when I woke up, I was determined to get answers as to why pokémon were being sent to ghettos. It was my only resolve.

I got the feeling I was going to be sitting in the attic for a while, so with an elongated nail, I gently carved a tally into the wooden floor.

Day one.

* Footnote: The "Sanctuary" was the unofficial name the others had given to the attic before I arrived. They also referred to the attic as the "Haven."


	3. After the Deportation

Apparently, I wasn't the only one who had their claustrophobia eating away their mentality. Kingston, the charmeleon, wasn't fond of the new addition to the Sanctuary.

"Just what we need. Another waste of air," he would mutter to himself. "If that damned Tim gets another one in here, I'll be forced to kill whoever it is."

"Killing pokémon for space isn't going to ease the situation," said an old blaziken as he took a puff from his pipe. "Neither will being an arrogant piece of work."

Kingston narrowed his eyes. "Oh, I think Ye Olde Cock is trying to tell me something. Does anyone understand Shakespearian?"

"King's got a point," a luxray spoke up. "We can't keep gathering more and more pokémon. It'd get cramped in here."

"I doubt there are any stragglers out there anymore," the glaceon said, looking woefully at the floor. "Everyone who wasn't lucky enough to find a safe and secure place like this..." She swished her tongue around in her mouth in contemplation. Then she burst into laughter, saying, "Well, I dunno!" She was immediately shushed.

That was my cue to speak up. "Wait." Everyone stared at me. I looked around at them nervously before continuing. "What's happening right now?"

They were silent for a moment.

Kingston was the one to answer, much to my dismay. "I heard the humans decided to send pokémon off to some ghettos located around the outskirts of all these towns, all around the world." He narrowed his eyes and balled up his hands. "But it won't end there. Next thing they know, they're being sent to some isolated farmlands far, far away."

"Huh? Then what?"

"Pow! Population control!"

The glaceon shrieked.

"Why are you freaking out, Tai? I already told you this."

"I'm sorry, just don't say it like that. Scares me."

Kingston sighed and shook his head.

"Where did you learn this?" I asked.

"Hm?" Kingston seemed to be surprised I was talking as much as I was. "Oh, I have my sources."

"Sounds like something Tod would say," I murmured, looking at the floor sadly.

"Tod? Hey, Tod the manectric? I know that guy! Crazy son of a gun. Where's he at?"

"I...don't know."

Sitting in the attic was excruciatingly boring at times when no one would talk. I'm sure the rest of them weren't thrilled to be locked up there either. At one point, the glaceon managed to slyly ease her way next to me.

"What's your name? There's something about you that tells me you know how to have fun. Mostly everyone in this group is dull and morose all the time, and it's driving me mad."

I chuckled. "Well, I'm not sure I can meet your expectations, but I'll try. I'm Fleance."

"Nice to meet you, Fleance. I'm Aestiva, but the boys call me Tai."

I looked around the room at the rest of the lot. "Who is everyone else?"

"Well, I don't know who _everyone_ is, but I'll tell you who I do know. That jerk charmeleon is King. No, wait, I mean his name is King. He's not a king."

I turned to Aestiva and smiled. She stopped fumbling with her words and looked me in the eyes. We were silent for a moment. I'm good at charming people into shutting up.

"Anyway," the glaceon said awkwardly, turning back to the pokémon. "The old, wise blaziken is Alexander. He used to live by himself. He's really smart and friendly, you know? But don't underestimate him. He is able to verbally put King in his place sometimes. And, uh, thus concludes our tour."

"What? There's at least about ten more pokémon in here."

Aestiva scratched her head and replied, "I kind of just got here yesterday. Well, we _all_ did, so..."

I pointed towards a grovyle at the far side of the room. "Who's that? The entire time I've been here, all he has been doing is looking out that window like a gargoyle."

"Oh, him. I can't remember his name. However, I do know that he suffers from this catatonic schizophrenia, or something like that. I don't know, he's weird. Don't talk to him."

I nodded, confused, and kept looking around until my eyes laid on a zoroark, who was looking back at me. Her eyes widened and she quickly looked away. I think my mouth might have been hanging agape. "Who-who's that?"

"I don't know." The glaceon glanced at me and glared at my mouth, before looking back to the zoroark and shrugging. "She looks weird, though."

"To each his own," I replied.

* Footnote:_  
_


	4. First Entry

I dug my nail into the floor, marking the second day of Lockup. The latest tally was slightly slanted and thinner in comparison to the previous day's. I later discovered the direct correlation between tally thickness and my strength and well-being.

I groggily lifted my head and observed some of the books in front of me. One book seemed out of place, smaller and thinner than the rest. I picked up the peculiar book and looked it over. It was an old hardcover, with beautiful velvet on the spine and elegant, glossy lacquer on the front and back. Scribed on the cover, in some typical fancy font, was _Events of 2000 Onward_. The book was real old. That explained its accumulation of dust. On the inside of the cover was _Property of..._. I found a quill pen, luckily one that provided itself with ink, hidden inside the hollow spine. I tenderly etched in my name. _Property of fleAnCe_.

I doubted that Tim would mind, or even notice for that matter.

I found that writing in my journal was the best way to pass the time. Though it was fairly difficult for my paws to pull off, I had fun writing about the horrors that I had so far endured, namely being cramped in a pantry, then immediately being cramped in an attic. Before I knew it, pages and pages were full of my writings.

Alexander fancied my journal, and insisted on reading it while I wrote, and reflecting upon it. He would laugh and say, "Yes, those are my thoughts exactly."

I didn't mind. In fact, I enjoyed it. He served as good company. He also knew a lot more about our fellow inmates than Tai did. Together, we would make crude observations on them. He was a fun guy.

_I've been hiding away, from what exactly, I still don't know, along with eleven others for two days now. The only few who have made my acquaintance are Aestiva, the chirpy glaceon, Kingston, the dastard charmeleon, and Alex, the wise and knowing blaziken._

Alexander scoffed upon reading that last part.

_Alex seems to have some insight on our inmates._

_The unstable grovyle, whose name is Serious..._

"No, no," Alexander intervened. "It's C-E-R-E-U-S."

_The unstable grovyle, whose name is...Cereus, is a very quiet and withdrawn individual. His unresponsive stupor makes him seem like a statue, constantly gazing out the window. He apparently named his left leafy hand after Cat Stevens._* _The only times I see him move voluntarily are when he thrashes at anyone who deliberately refers to his hand as _Cact _Stevens. I'm afraid both his state of mind and fragile body aren't cut out for hiding up here. But then again, who _is _cut out? The luxray, Summer, has made herself comfortable under the rule of Kingston, as his loyal lackey. In actuality, the two of them don't interact much, but in certain situations or arguments, Summer tends to side with King. She's a nice girl, she just has poor judgement is all._

I looked up from my journal and bit the tip of my pen, deep in thought. "Hey, Alex."

"Yes?"

"Who's that girl over there?"

"The zoroark?"

I glared at the blaziken and shushed him. "...Yeah."

"That's Tara."

_Lurking in the corner of the attic is a zoroark named Tara. She seems real shy, much like Cereus, but more mobile. I want to hear her say something more than anything right now. I want to hear her voice. I'm thinking about going over to her and talking with her, but I'm afraid to look like a fool. I've caught her looking at me before. Every time, however, she looks at something else. But, since it looks like I'll be at Tim's for a while more, I might as well get to know my "roommates," rather than shallowly sticking with just Alex and Aestiva._

Alexander, by that point, had stopped peering over my shoulder. I guess he didn't want to delve _too_ much into my thoughts. That's what I liked about him.

"Food." Tim entered the room and dropped a sack in the middle of the floor. "Enjoy some delicious artificially-modified bread, grown fresh in the most fertile of factories."

Tim looked to be in his late thirties. I think he must've been around before wheat and all other botanics were destroyed.

King groaned and began distributing the bread among all of us. It tasted like cardboard, but we couldn't complain. It was food—energy—after all.

* Footnote: Many musical bands had a huge influence of us pokémon in the 90's, huge enough that some have obsessed over particular artists, such as Cat Stevens.


	5. Second Entry

The communal toilet was below in the library. Inmates had to frequent the passage between Sanctuary and library, and it wasn't long until a lot of the inmates started hanging out downstairs, where it was "roomier," according to them. I never understood why, because, yes, the library was bigger than the Sanctuary, but it was a concentrated maze of bookshelves. That kind of stuff scares the daylights out of me.

I was alone with Tai in the attic one day, playing a word game. We argued over what words existed and what words didn't. My colloquial words appeared to enrage her, then she would be manically overcome with joyous excitement and be reverted to her chirpy self again. I would stare at her apathetically while, inwardly, twitching with confusion. She couldn't stop beaming. She began giggling again, and her giggles soon turned into full-on fits of hysteria. I figured then and there that she was unstable, and there was nothing I could do about it, so I joined in and laughed until we were slamming our fists on the table and she was falling off her chair. Down on the floor, she stopped laughing and looked me in the eyes. Her eyes were a golden auburn, and reminded me of the sunsets in autumn.

Tai looked away from me to her shirt, bearing a hint of red underneath her autumnal eyes. She cleaned her shirt off, regaining her composure, and offered, "You still up for playing, Fleance?"

"I think we both know who won." (She won by a lot, for she was advantageously stubborn.)

I initially imagined Aestiva to be a little simple-minded, because she was so bubbly and oblivious—not to mention childish. I underestimated her. She was pretty, sure, and she was kind, sure, but she presented herself in such a way that put me off; her hyperactive physique and bold attitude made me very anxious. The quiet and coy types appeal more to me. I had yet to talk to Tara. That was on the top of my to-do list, right after fiddling with the Ouija board.

"How do you use this?" I took the planchette in my paw and looked it over.

"I don't know," Tai replied, twiddling her fingers nervously. "I'd really rather play more word games."

"This is a word game. Quit being so scared." After reading the instructions, I nodded and placed the planchette on the board with my finger on top. "Put your finger on mine."

At first, Tai looked like she misheard me, then, after a moment of hesitation, she nodded and laid her finger on mine. It felt cold, but soon heated up. An endothermic creature like her wouldn't last long being around Kingston. This fact unnerved me. "Now what?"

I cleared my throat and spoke softly. "Now, we feed it some simple queries to see whether anyone's listening. O Great Ouija, what is thy ghost's name?"

The planchette was inanimate at first, then slowly vibrated.

Tai gasped. "Fleance, don't do that," she whispered, shaking.

"I'm not doing that," I chuckled.

The planchette suddenly moved around the board, shifting to different letters.

"W-what did it spell?"

"Spelt Daemon, I think."

"A ghost named Daemon. Couldn't you be a little more original, Fleance?"

"I'm not controlling the piece. Daemon, do you come to us with malevolent intentions?"

The planchette shifted to the _no_, then to the _yes_, as if it was unsure of itself.

"Well, at least it's honest."

Tai was shaking hard where she sat.

"What have you come for, Daemon? What do you want from us?"

The planchette shifted about, sluggishly at first, then rapidly. When it was done, I looked up at Tai. I could tell she saw it this time, by the way her eyes were wide open.

"Fleance, that's not funny. Aestiva? It wants Aestiva?" She removed her finger from mine in a huff.

I sighed, disappointed, and looked up at her. Her eyes had changed. They were larger, and bright yellow. She wore a fanged grin that stretched from one temple to another. It was then that I realized, much to my horror, that I was staring through the semitransparent face of a ghost, who did a satisfactory job at distorting my friend's face.

_It occurred to me today that Aestiva is actually very brilliant. Behind her many masks of whimsical and childish dispositions lies a very intelligent being. I also learned that she's deathly afraid of ghosts, upon the arrival of Daemon, the mismagius who managed to avoid the humans with the help of his typical spirit cloaking abilities._

_I asked Daemon if he could glean any amount of information about the humans' intentions by snooping around the outside world for a bit. He's a little resistant. His excuse is that he doesn't want to find out too much. Even he who can bring a grown glaceon to tears is overtly afraid of the humans._

* Footnote:


	6. Third Entry

I looked over my tally marks. Four. I exited the Sanctuary and climbed down the stairs. As I opened the door to the library's loo, I noticed a dark figure kneeling by the shelf door. I breathed in and out before approaching her. "Uh, Tara, is it?"

Without averting her glance from her shoe, she stared at me in her periphery. "Yeah?" Her voice wasn't as soothing as I had imagined. It was low in tone, but still helped to distinguish that she was a girl, which was good. Females with manly voices are scary to behold.

"Um, where are you going?"

Tara sighed, finishing up her shoelace, and stood up to see me face to face. Her teal eyes burned through me and didn't seem to acknowledge any significance about me being alone with her. "Tim's bed-ridden. I need to fetch our food for us." She pushed the shelf out and slipped through. I followed curiously.

"How are _you _supposed to get our food? You're a pokémon."

"Yeah, I guess so." She walked briskly through the studio, not paying much attention to me.

I followed her down to the main floor, all the while asking her numerous questions. When we got to the garage, I had to wait at the entrance. I couldn't go further, as it was too dark. Tara proceeded without hesitation and was consumed by the darkness. I heard her shift through boxes and boxes before she opened a door on the far side of the room.

"Wish me luck," she called, giving me a final glance. I thought I saw her lip curl upwards in a smirk, but what unsettled me was how her face and body looked different in that split second of time when the light was on her. I could have sworn she looked like a young lady—a human lady, with red hair coiled tightly around the back of her head.

I spent that day ruminating in the corner of the library by myself. Because most of the library's books were dated back to the late 1900s, I had a tough time trying to find anything about current day pokémon. Eventually, I found a treatise in fairly good condition on the genealogy and categorization of dark-types. Species were listed chronologically, rather than alphabetically, from when they were discovered, and so I had a particularly hard time finding the zoroark. Upon finally reaching the zoroark's section, my questions were immediately answered. I placed the encyclopedia back in its respective place, feeling content.

_I learned that Tara is able to disguise herself as a human girl. I believe she can also reshape herself to appear as other pokémon. She's now taking care of us, because Tim contracted some sort of stomach flu. It must be risky for her to casually walk around town among the humans. But if it wasn't for her, we wouldn't be provided with food._

"Huh," said Alexander. "I did not know that."

* Footnote:


	7. Fourth Entry

_There are some inmates who I have yet to introduce. However, they refuse to interact with anyone, and their dismal inconsequentiality is not something I have the time and paper to exalt. So, here is a list and unimpressive description of remainders, who lurk in the more mundane sectors of the Sanctuary: _

_Lily, a serperior whose boldness was completely obliterated when the war began. She looks to be about about three years of age,* though age doesn't really matter at all. Basically, she's quiet, but she lets her actions do the talking for her, which leads me to believe she was very spirited once upon a time. She's violent; be wary of her. Rose, the small, feeble, and highly confused croconaw who lingers around Lily often, and tends to ignorantly inquire, "Est-ce que tu penses quand la guerre finira?" Not much is known about Rose, other than the fact that she is clearly a foreigner. Easal the smeargle, who has had his brush-like tail dry up in the stale air of the attic. Without being able to use the appendage to paint, he's grown noticeably depressed. _(A couple days later, Easal's painting withdrawal actually drove him to desperately seek any possible alternative for paint—in this case, he found blood, but I'll get into to that later.) _Born only a year ago, Michael the jolteon is the youngest of all of us. He indignantly stays put in the corner of the attic with a scowl on his face._ _Lastly, the absol who often hovers over Aestiva. He is quite the cocky fellow. He's amusing though, in his own clumsy way; I've seen him storm off in a huff after arguing with King over something or other, before walking into a book shelf and being bombarded by _Huckleberry Finn_ and the like. Babel, the absol, is hopeless. He pays his share for the food with his entertainment though, so he does play a valuable role in the Sanctuary. Babel is good friends with Daemon. Go figure._

_When he gets rejected by Tai, he usually navigates his way through the crowd towards Tara. After the zoroark manages to ignore the degenerate for a while, he cycles to his next victim: Summer. When that fails, next on the list is Rose. When THAT fails, he resorts to Lily. After Lily grabs the sickle atop his head and brings it down, along with his face, onto the coffee table, he has nothing better to do than snag Alexander's pipe and go nuts._

_At least Babel has the moral to drag his libidinous hunt out for days, rather than just cycling from girl to girl within the span of mere minutes. He wouldn't want to embarrass himself too much, yet his desire for attention is so obvious. His patience is commendable, I have to say, but his intentions are still not of pokémon virtue._

_Alexander has the biggest problem with Babel, partly because his stupidity makes Alex feel stupid himself, and partly because he's sly and can manage a puff or two out of Alex's pipe before he's caught. __How can someone even do what Babel does in such a situation? I mean, I get thoughts about Tara on occasion, but I don't pursue her as if it was my duty, especially while my life is at stake._

"What are you writing there, Flea?" Babel began to ease his way up to me. I quickly slammed my diary shut, color flushing from my face. "Is that your little diary?" Babel made himself comfortable next to me, grinning broadly. "I bet it's full of how you're soon gonna snap and kill all of us, right? Although, between you and me, I think Cereus is gonna beat you to it."

"That s-seems shockingly plausible," I replied.

"Do you know where Daemon is?"

"I told him to gather information about the human's plans."

"I thought we already established what their plans are. They're going to send us to ghettos, then to farmlands where they exterminate us one by one."

"N-no! We don't know anything yet!"

Babel shrugged and off he went. Before he left the room, I heard him shriek. I turned around to see him on the floor, motionless. Floating above him was none other than whom he was looking for.

Everything was very quiet for a minute. Daemon looked from the absol to me, then back to the absol.

"What the heck?" Babel snarled and sat up. "Stop scaring me you little—"

"Scaring you? I didn't scare you. This is not the time to play games, Babel." Daemon appeared before me, wearing a look of sorrow. Babel crawled his way next to me and shivered, wiping his mouth. "Status report!"

Across the room, Kingston looked up from his picture book in interest.

"I have good news and bad news, and following the bad news is more good news, which is followed by bad news." Daemon had to take a moment to breathe. "After searching around, I found this abandoned flat down the road a bit. Not even a single human lives there, unless they were out doing something when I found it. However, the state the flat's in leads me to believe that its owner left in a hurry."

"Wait a second," I began, only to be cut off by the mismagius.

"The tele was left on, and on the news channel too, so I sat on the couch and watched it for a good hour or so."

"You're saying this house is...abandoned?" I asked apprehensively. Daemon nodded. I brought my paw to my face and groaned.

He must be talking about my house, I thought to myself. In which case, the old lady is gone.

"Um, anyway, I found out, while watching the tele, that the pokémon are not in the ghettos anymore."

"What?"

"Excuse me?" King dropped his book and stood. He made his way over to us and glared at Daemon. "Where did those fiends send them?" he spat.

"You remember what you said about population control?"

Though it was his premonition, King still brought his hands to his face in disbelief. He toppled over.

"No freakin' way," Babel exclaimed. "You mean, if we get caught, we die?"

"Not necessarily. Your outcome may vary, depending on where you're sent."

"This is impossible. Why would the humans do something like that? What did we ever do to them?"

"It doesn't matter. We're going to wait this out up here. No one will find us."

"That's easy for you to say. You can turn invisible!"

"So, can you sum up the good news and the bad news for us so far?"

Daemon cleared his throat and said aloud, "The bad news is, things aren't looking up for those that were successfully taken away by the humans. The good news is, we have a news network running 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Continuing."

"Yes, okay. What's the other good and bad news?" Babel asked.

"I smelled something rank, so I figured it was food. I found, in the fridge, quite a selection of produce. Fruits and vegetables."

"Hey," King interrupted. "Ever wonder where that nasty stuff comes from?"

"They come from factories," Daemon replied flatly. "You don't know that, Kingston? Damn, get with the program."

"What did you say to me?"

"Where the fruits and veggies come from isn't what's important. What's important is that we have a bounty of food. We can enjoy some variation in our diets for about five days, is my hypothesis. Anyway, that's not where the stench was coming from, so I checked the pantry, whose door was in a pretty bad state. Had a nice hole in the bottom, so that unfortunately aired out the food more, not that that would matter... 'Cause it's mostly canned food in there, you know what I mean? On the inside was a bottom section and a huge top section, separated by a wooden board. Under the board was a bunch of crackers and the canned goods, all of which were covered in fur, so that was pretty appalling."

I lowered my ears in embarrassment.

"But hey, this pantry was brimming with food!"

King and Babel cheered.

"But why didn't you bring any food over?" I questioned.

"I have a hard time carrying stuff. I'm gonna leave that up to Tara. Also—and here comes the other bad news—the food in the pantry is all contaminated."

"By what? The fur?" I barked, rubbing my arm self-consciously. "That fur is clean, I tell you."

"No, not by the fur," Daemon replied, confused as to why I cared so much about the fur in the first place.

"Then by what?"

"Um, well," Daemon paused, his yellow, wandering eyes seeming to lose their sinisterness. "There's a decomposing manectric hanging from the ceiling."

* Footnote: For those of you reading this who are human, don't forget that the average pokémon matures differently than a human. For example, while an average human is practically unconscious for most of their early years, a one-year-old jolteon has the same mindset as, say, a ten-year-old human.


	8. Fifth Entry

"I'm coming with you."

"I don't think that's a good idea, Fleance," Tara said, zipping up her jacket.

"The house isn't even half a block away, right? I can make it without being caught. Trust me."

"You should listen to her," Daemon suggested.

"If you two are so concerned for me, then why don't—"

"We're not concerned for _you_," Tara said bluntly, crossing her arms. "We're concerned for the Sanctuary's safety."

I sighed. "Tara, you can shift forms; why don't you carry me down the street as if you were taking me away?"

Tara rolled her eyes and groaned. She circled around me and seized my paws with force. She let go and said, "No, this won't work. Just wait here, Fleance. Quit getting in the way." She gestured for Daemon to follow her. They made their way into the pitch-black garage. I watched as a door on the opposite side of the room was opened, allowing sunlight to enter and reveal their new appearances. Tara was a young woman, and Daemon...well, Daemon literally had no appearance. His body had dissipated into the air.

I need to see Tod, I thought to myself before scurrying over boxes and rubbish to get to that door. I opened it hastily. It was the first time I had felt fresh air in six days. Well, the air wasn't exactly _fresh_, but it was rejuvenating nonetheless. I scanned the street for at least five minutes, focusing on every nook and cranny that a human could be hiding in, waiting to pop out, "minding his or her own business," and run into me. Finally, I made my advance. I dashed down the street as fast as I could, knowing that if anyone saw me, it'd be all over. I threw myself through my front door and landed in a heap in the foyer. After closing the door, I peered through the mail slot for any approaching humans. God, I was so stupid to have done that. But no one saw, thankfully.

"In the name of all that is holy, what do you think you're doing?" came Tara's frantic whispering. "Are you trying to lure a hoard to us? Dammit, Fleance. Daemon, get ready to hide."

"No, no! I looked, and no one's coming!" I tried to defend myself, but to no avail. Then the foul stench hit me. I quickly remembered what I was there for, and I grew more afraid than when I ran up the street moments before. I sped past Tara and Daemon, who looked at each other, dumbfounded.

I stood before the pantry door, clutching my stomach. My eyes were burning, and as was my nose. I slowly reached out for the door knob. I felt its metallic coldness in my paws. I turned it and pulled the door open.

Immediately, I shielded my nose and looked away. A whine escaped my lips.

"Dang!" Tara inspected the pantry from behind me. "Poor sucker must've known the deportation was coming."

I backed away and slammed into the kitchen wall, sliding down it until I was sitting.

The zoroark looked at me and put her paws on her hips. "It doesn't smell _that _bad."

All I could do was shake my head over and over again. They didn't understand the source of or reason for my pain. I had been sitting up in that attic for days then, and I was hardly informed about just how harsh the war really was—after all, I wasn't being exterminated south in the country like the other unfortunate pokémon. But realization came to me in the heart of that moment, when I learned that the gravity of the war drove my lifelong friend to hang himself in our storage for canned goods.

I opened my eyes and took another look at the pantry. Originally, the architect had planned for it to be a half-bath, but, since there was already a bathroom on the same story, my owner had no need for it. That was why it was such a large pantry.

Inside, suspended two feet above the floor, was the board that I had been cramped underneath. Above the board, on each side of the wall, were numerous shelves, all containing canned goods, dry vegetables, and so on. Cans had fallen onto the board below, presumably when the manectric had climbed up the shelves. About a foot above the board was where Tod's body began. His legs still swayed back and forth lightly. Five and a half feet above that mark, a rope was tied around Tod's neck. Finally, one foot above that, the end of the rope was tied around a hook protruding from the ceiling.

I began to gag upon realizing how Tod had been hanging above me the entire time I was confined below. His body slightly oscillating above my unknowing self... The thought made me hack and wheeze.

The moment felt surreal. I kept asking myself, Why? Why would Tod do it? And of all places, the pantry, too.

The thing is, the pantry was the most unfrequented room of the apartment. I mean, the food inside was non-perishable for a reason: so we could neglect it and leave it in there basically. I guess Tod just didn't want anyone to find him—and neither did my owner when she told me to hide in there. But that would mean Tod...had abandoned us? Left us to learn about the imminent deportation the hard way?

In the pantry, I saw that Tod had plenty of opportunities to save himself. He could have rested his feet on the shelves. Sometimes, a person will realize they don't want to die mid-suicide, and desperately seek any salvation before it's too late. All the visible opportunities in the pantry told me how willing Tod was to die, and that fact brought me to tears.

_"I heard they're moving us to some exclusive ghettos soon." _

_"Ghettos? Exclusive—just for pokémon, you mean? Who's moving us?" _

_"You know. The humans." _

I howled into my paws until Tara tore them from my face and looked me in the eyes, disconcerted.

"Fleance, calm down, please," she spoke softly. "What's gotten into you?"

"He... He was my roommate," I stammered. "This is my house."

Tara and Daemon glanced at each other, wide-eyed, then they stared back at me.

"Oh... Oh." Tara leaned against the wall next to me and took my paw in hers.

"Fleance, I'm sure everyone in the Sanctuary has lost someone dear to them. I mean, where do you think _my_ family is? Because they're not in the Sanctuary, I'll tell you that."

"Hey, I hatched from an egg, and my parents weren't even there," Daemon spoke up.

Tara frowned and scoffed. "Well, I guess that would make you lucky, if you never knew your parents in the first place."

"Well, yeah, I guess so." Daemon grinned. His smile soon faded. "Oh. Uh, sorry Fleance."

Tara looked to me compassionately. "But, I guess I never saw my family like _this_. That ought to leave a different impact on someone."

_Today I saw Tod again, after what has felt like months. He was sleeping in my apartment's pantry, funny guy. Strange how one can find comfort in such hard times. It's all_

...And the entry suddenly ends there.

* Footnote:

**A/N: Sorry I'm uploading so late at night. Anyway, Moon (guest), if you can sign in, I'd like to PM you about your OC submission. **

**Hope you all are enjoying the story so far! Five chapters remain. Don't forget to review!**


	9. Sixth Entry

"Come on, people, keep your stuff out of my space!" the charmeleon would yell. "This is _my_ corner, so keep your filthy stuff away from it."

"King, calm down—"

"Get away from me! Don't touch. No. Stop it."

It's peculiar, the way he went from being the alpha, the leader of the group, the enforcer of Tim's laws, to this noisy, claustrophobic wreck.

Because Tim was sick in bed and unable to tell us what to do, we had sort of manifest-destiny'd our way into the studio, to have a wider range to roam on. I couldn't complain, though it was risky. If a human were to peek out their window at the flat across the street, they'd see a party of pokémon behind a vast wall of glass. We had to hide amongst the workstations while we were in there.

I was talking with Tai while sitting near the west-wing window, which looked over the courtyard of the entire apartment building. I was dissecting a clementine whilst deep in conversation. "Why does fruit taste so bland?"

"I've always wondered that, myself," the glaceon replied. "Same goes for vegetables. They all taste the same."

"I know. Shouldn't, for example, tomatoes taste different than...carrots? Like, they're different colors, different shapes, one's all gelatinous on the inside and the other's hard..."

"I have never been more confused about anything in my entire life."

We smiled at each other. She tore a section of the clementine from my paw and relaxed against my shoulder. Nonchalant, I sighed and looked out the window. It wasn't exactly as breathtaking a sight as the east-wing's view, but I could cope. I smiled to myself. That's when I saw him. In a different apartment, across the way, a face was looking at me from behind a window. To my relief, I realized that it wasn't a human, but a young, smartly-dressed breloom. I sat up, causing the comatose glaceon to slink down and jerk back up with a start.

"Hey, I was enjoying that." She rubbed her eyes and blinked at me.

"Look, over there." I pointed to the breloom.

Tai let out a gasp. "Oh my."

"Do you know him?"

"What? Uh, I don't think so."

I watched as the breloom disappeared and reappeared with a blank white piece of paper. He was doing something to it. He then lifted it up to the glass, putting it and his mitts on display. _Hi_, it read.

"He's trying to communicate with us!"

"Hey, Daemon, where you at?"

An apparition appeared with its head shifting out from the floorboards. "'Sup."

"You see that breloom?"

Daemon hovered his way up to the window and gazed out. "What in the..."

"Float over to him and ask him what he's doing."

Daemon complied and vanished. He returned shortly after and said, "I think I gave him a heart attack."

"So you killed him."

"Yup." Daemon hovered off elsewhere to attend whatever usual wall-haunting affairs ghosts do.

"What a big help," I muttered, turning back to the window to watch as the breloom appeared again and leaned against the glass, looking drained with a much paler complexion than before. He sluggishly brought the paper up. _Who's the mismagius_?

Tai appeared next to me with some really old parchment paper and pen. Apparently, she had sought for the paper while I was unaware.

"Oh, we can't use that," I said. "That's some really high quality paper."

"Relax. The studio's got plenty more." She fumbled with the pen and carved unintelligible letters into the parchment. I promptly took it from her and began writing. She huffed and crossed her arms. After looking at my writing, her expression changed. "Wow, Fleance. You're good at that," she enthused.

"I've been writing in my spare time."

"Writing what?"

"N-nothing." I put the parchment to the window. _That's Daemon. He's harmless._ I saw the breloom smirk before I resumed writing. _How're you managing?_

_Poorly. Without food, but other than that, OK._

_Daemon will send food over to you._

The breloom's eyes widened. He scribbled something on his paper and brought it against the glass. It was the shape of a heart. Aestiva found it to be hilarious.

_We made a new friend today. This breloom was on the verge of starvation when we saw him across the courtyard. Daemon was humbly willing to supply him with some of the food from my house. Kingston, on the other hand, became incensed when he found out. He snatched my paper, which is our means of communicating with the breloom, and angrily drove his pen about it, his eyes ablaze and just as hot as his fiery tail. He slammed it against the glass for the breloom to read. I don't know what it read, because King tore it up quickly afterwards, but whatever it was, it seemed to shock the breloom. King's mental state is rapidly deteriorating, I can tell. After witnessing King's episode with the paper, Babel whispered a snide remark in my ear about how King, in actuality, will be the first to snap and kill all of us. All of a sudden, I'm no longer concerned about the catatonic Cereus. Kingston is now a much bigger threat. Even his tailfire burns hotter by the day, putting Tai, the poor ice-type, through a great deal of stress._

_It's only a matter of time..._

With the discovery of my journal came the discovery of books in general. I began reading novel after novel while I was in the attic. "Ah, so you're into reading too, I see," Alexander said to me. "Books are the only things that seem to keep me at ease these days." He was right. Books calm me down, and in addition to that, they help pass the time.

I read a piece that really reflected on the situation I was in. _The Lord of the Flies_, it was called. The way the human children were stranded on the island and how they were losing their minds paralleled the habitants of the Santuary's position almost too well. When the conch shell, the quintessential symbol of control, was reduced to shards and fragments, the kids began killing each other—or practically _trying _to, anyway.

So that brings me to ask, what is _our_ symbol of control? What's _our_ conch shell? What has to remain intact in order for us to keep our cools? Is it food? Is it space?

Ironically, the conch shell was Kingston himself, an epitome of control soon to be reduced to fragments. After he threw his first fit with the parchment, he threw another similar fit regarding food and the breloom a little while later after I had written in my journal and returned from the Sanctuary. Once again, we were all left speechless in the studio as King stormed off into the library. We had stared at the floor for a good few minutes.

I sighed and stood up. "I'll go talk to him."

"Fleance," came Tai's voice, "be careful."

I nodded and made my way into the library. After going through the passage, I slowly made my way up the narrow stairs. I opened the door to the Sanctuary to find the grovyle, staring out the window as usual, and the charmeleon with a book in his hands.

King averted his eyes from my diary and snarled, "Look who it is."

I gasped. "Kingston, that is my property. Stop reading now." I approached him cautiously, holding out my paws, begging for my book.

King leered at me before he proceeded to read aloud. "Kingston's log, day one: The dastard charmeleon appears to be fairly arrogant and has acquired a number of lackeys the very first day of confinement."

My face burned with embarrassment. "Okay, King, that's enough," I urged.

"He has positioned himself, without regards to anyone else, as the alpha and leader of the group, being the one to distribute bread and water among the others and enforce Tim's rules."

"Stop!" I lurched forward and reached for my diary. King swatted my hand away and growled at me. I tried a second time, but my paw was once again met by his. I began relentlessly groping for my book.

"Back off, Fleance!" King cried furiously. "I'll burn your little diary! I swear I will!"

That pushed me over the edge. I grabbed hold of the charmeleon's shoulder. He quickly spun around so I couldn't grab my book. In my process of thrashing, I grabbed something else unknowingly. King stiffened up, allowing me to clutch onto his shoulders. He toppled forth, breaking free from my grasp, regained his balance, and turned his head to look me in the eye. His expression had changed drastically, from one of fierce hatred to one of pure concern. His eyes drifted downward. His lip quivered slightly.

It was then that I noticed his tail. It wasn't on fire anymore. I had extinguished it with my paw. King gave me a final look of horror, uttering hoarse words I could not understand under his breath. His eyes rolled up into his head and he then fell to his knees and stayed in that position for a moment before fully collapsing onto the floor, diary still in hand.

Cereus continued to silently gaze out the window.

* Footnote:

* * *

A/N: Lol. Before I continue with this story, I'd like give credit for the people who submitted approved OCs which have made an appearance so far.

The breloom: FinalPower  
PS, you're such a bro.

Daemon the mismagius, Rose the croconaw (was she a croconaw? I can't remember), and Lily the serperior: Decapoda.  
I probably should have credited you sooner, but I forgot. Not trying to take the credit, boyo, just always in a rush to update then got on with other stuff; I become forgetful.

Decapoda and I have been working on a collab together called _Turnaround_, which you all should read (in your own time of course, hohoho). If you like this story, you'll probably like _Turnaround _for its similar plot based on pokémon inequities (a highly beloved theme of mine). Look for a link at the top of my profile if you'd like. Thanks again FinalPower and Decapoda.


	10. Seventh Entry

After I had shamefully shattered the conch shell—okay, well, enough with this corny control symbolism—after I had extinguished the charmeleon, everything went downhill, as was expected. Summer had entered the room moments later and had seen the charmeleon's body immediately. Chaos ensued afterwards. She called me some ugly words and threatened to kill me before being restrained by Rose and Lily. All I could do was look at Summer understandingly, though I was still having trouble processing what happened.

I had witnessed the murder of a fellow inmate that dreadful day, and to prevent me from ever forgetting the incident, a scar had formed on the calis of my paw where I doused King's tailfire. The scar stung for a while and kept me from sleeping, but soon the burning sensation subsided and my paw felt fine. However, even though the burn had faded, my remorse stayed strong, and I was still unable to sleep regardless.

I was in the midst of weakly carving the eighth tally into the wood when I noticed something odd. The row of tallies was a gradient of thickness. The first tally was deep and strong, and from there, the thickness diminished until the tally was barely visible. Horrified, I began to panic, checking my nails and flexing my muscles, desperately searching for any amount of mound that should appear beneath my fur. With an annoyed grunt, I dug my nail into the eighth tally and frantically scratched and scratched until my nail broke off. I cried out in pain and stuffed my finger into my maw. To my relief, the tally was now just as accented as the first.

I'm not losing my strength, I had told myself. I'm just as robust as I always was!

All the others were downstairs in the studio, as usual, except for Cereus. I exhaled and made myself comfortable. I watched Cereus for a while, observing his every twitch and slight movement. Sunlight flooded the room once the clouds had dispersed. It was then that I noticed the shiny moistness on the grovyle's unfazed face. On closer inspection, I realized he was crying. I sat down next to him and stared out the window. "What's the matter?"

I didn't expect him to say anything, but to my surprise, he stated calmly how humanity had become corrupt and how the humans were once completely different and, for the most part, not as hostile. "It all began when the Industrial 2.0 Era started," he told me. "Everything died off, leaving the humans the sole species."

"What do you mean, 'everything died off'?"

"The plants."

"Plants never died off. What are you talking about? We have tomatoes, carrots, and spinach in the food basket."

"The animals."

There was a long pause. "Animals?" I repeated. "What're animals?"

"Animals were similar to us, but they weren't as intelligent as we are. They roamed the earth before we were even created. And then the Industrial 2.0 Era came, and they all went extinct."

I remembered Tod telling me something about animals. I claimed his stories bollocks as usual, and he just shrugged and continued what he was doing.

"And then, to compensate for the lack of animals, pokémon were created." Cereus suddenly turned to me and blurted out, "Don't you see? The humans _made_ us! We're just their creations. We're at total mercy to them! If they can bring us into this world...God knows how easy it will be for them to take us out." He turned back to the window, but after a moment he buried his face in his leafy hands and wept.

I sat there, unable to say anything.

He caressed his leafy hand, rocking back and forth, whispering to himself in alien schizophrenia speech. He looked at me again, but this time his eyes were full of fury. "Don't you know why they call my hand _cact_? Those imbeciles derived the name from an extinct succulent plant called a cactus. They grew in arid climates and were often found with thorns and such, their means of self defense. Don't you read books all the time? Do you read nonfiction at all? How do you not know about all the extinct organisms?"

I blinked.

"I'm going to teach you something. Because cacti were such useless plants, they're not found anywhere today because the humans had no use for them. However, all the edible plants, such as our tomatoes, carrots, and whatnot are all non-biogenetically grown because we and the humans need them for eating and sustaining us. Listen. Ever heard of water algae?"

I slowly shook my head.

"Well, algae was the main source of oxygen back before the start of the era. Trees did their part, too, I guess. Anyway, the humans tried creating their own algae, but they can't just engineer a living, breathing organism—not without the use of a different dimension, that is. So, predicting that the extinction of algae was inevitable, the humans took initiative and made a machine to convert carbon dioxide to pure oxygen and carbon. Now, we can breathe and drink water and whatever. Did you ever learn any of this? How old are you? Okay, you know why the animals died? Deforestation kills a lot of them, and when there's no algae, there's nothing for the microorganisms to eat, and then they die, and then there's nothing for the slightly larger fish to eat, and then they die, and then there's nothing for the slightly-slightly larger fish to eat, and then they die, and so on and so forth." Cereus burst into tears abruptly and refused to tell me any more after that.

Everything Tod had told me really was true, I thought to myself.

Mostly everyone in the Sanctuary was aware of these former animals and former plants. I never really left my house much, so I was fairly uneducated when it came to this, whereas Tod was always out and about, talking with other pokémon and picking up more and more information by the day.

I was left in the shadows, or so I had thought. But, in reality, I could've gone and found out these things myself, but I could never bring myself to do so. I just wasn't curious enough.

_Everything Tod had told me, all those rumors, had been confirmed by the grovyle. Even the rumor about pokémon originally walking on fours had been confirmed by him with a sluggish nod. Humans created us. They practically own us. _

I wondered how much longer we'd have to wait up there, in the attic. While I was mindlessly pacing the floor, I stumbled across something I had not seen before on the opposite side of the room from where I usually slept.

_I discovered a niche behind one of the bookshelves. Much like the secret passage between the library and the Sanctuary's staircase, there is no wall behind this bookshelf. I noticed this when I was searching for the nonfiction that supposedly conveys Earth as it was before the Industrial Era. Behind the books, there is an empty space that is completely hidden from light. This shelf is near Babel, Summer, and Lily's quarters. They don't seem like the types to willingly read, so that'd explain how this space remained unnoticed._

_What's odd though is how you're supposed to enter this niche. Because the shelf is built into the wall, one would have to remove all the books and crawl through in order to get inside. I did so, and found that the space was probably about twice as large as the bottom section of the pantry I was stowed in. In fact, it's bigger both length-wise _and_ height-wise. I don't know if this secret compartment will ever come in handy. Maybe I can hide my personal belongings—my diary—inside it, but that'd mean I have to awkwardly intrude on Babel, Summer, and Lily's quarters. And because Summer is on the verge of ripping my throat out, the last thing I want to do is get near her._

I looked up from my diary and stared at the luxray, who was silently glowering at me from her bed. Everyone was ready to go to sleep for the night in their piles of blankets that Tim had provided for everyone. The lamp next to me was the only source of light in the room.

Summer and I looked at each other for a minute. Her head was low, but her yellow eyes held their position, locked on mine, glistening brilliantly. She wasn't the only one who was staring at me. Babel cleaned his sickle with a wipe absentmindedly while looking at me from the corner of his eye. Lily had her blankets tucked up to her chin. Her eyes were open, on me, keeping watch. Tara seemed to occaisionally glare at me, but was more focused on sharpening her claws on the wooden floor. Aestiva, who lay next to me, gave me a weird look before turning over in her bed and closing her eyes. Daemon had disappeared, and was presumably sleeping in the walls. Easal had been squinting at me for a while, until he grew tired and buried himself under his blankets, his brush-like tail the only visible part of his body, flopping about on the floor with a mind of its own. Rose sat upright in her bed. Her eyes would droop down now and then, and every time, she would soon jerk up and her eyes would widen, and she would stare at me, startled. Michael was sleeping soundly. Alexander kept a keen eye on me the entire time. I seem to have lost his trust.

I never told anyone why I had killed King. I never told them that the brawl was over my diary. That would seem like a stupid thing to kill someone over, and they probably would have misinterpreted it anyway. They didn't seem to take into account that King was losing his mind when he died. But before I killed him, all he did was threaten to destroy my book. He was harmless towards me.

_Something tells me Summer isn't the only one ready to take action against me... They all think I'm a monster. They all think I'm a killer!_

_And they want to kill me before I kill them._

I reached for the lamp's chain. After I took one last look at the luxray's homicidal, blood-craving expression, I yanked the chain and everything grew dark.

* Footnote:


	11. Eighth Entry

For the remainder of the time I was hiding, I felt empty and alone. No one talked to me. I felt I direly needed someone to talk to, but the only soul who wouldn't shy away from me was Cereus, and we seldom exchanged more than just a greeting. Every room I entered, be it the Sanctuary, the library, or the studio, the other pokémon would immediately disperse and seek the nearest exit, leaving the room remote every time.

Before my fellow inmates' phase was in effect, we woke up in the same room on the eighth morning, the ninth day of confinement. There seemed to be a little less tension in the air, mainly because they were ignoring my presence—a method of ostracism I rather preferred, instead of them glaring at me. Even Summer paid no heed and continued her usual doings. I managed to talk with Aestiva before she and everyone else, save for Cereus and me, evacuated the room.

"Everyone thinks I'm going to kill them, Tai." I clutched her shirt and looked at her desperately.

"What do you want me to do about it?" was her answer.

I immediately gave up, knowing she wouldn't be of use to me. I let go of her shirt and laid down in my bed, my head cocked up so I could observe Easal paint the wall over his own pile of blankets. He cackled to himself quietly, bursting out with a sporadic guffaw now and then while he slathered indecipherable things on the wood with red paint. One of the girls had approached him and asked him what on Earth he was doing. The smeargle glanced at the girl, gave her a stern look, and turned back to the wall, saying, "I haven't painted since the deportation. I need this to cool my nerves." The girl asked him where he got the paint from. "Found it in the incinerator room," he had replied coolly, smearing his tail across the splinter-rich canvas. The girl scratched her head, shot me a quick stare, and told Easal to go downstairs soon, or else he'd be alone with "..._Fleance_."

With my keen sense of smell, I could recognize the scent of Easal's paint from anywhere. I felt somewhat relieved to know that Easal's mind was deteriorating at as quick a rate as mine was.

The day before, King's body had been hidden temporarily in a crawl space below the staircase between the Sanctuary and the library. It was festering, overcome with rigor mortis, and soon it'd begin to stink. Easal offered to take the body to the incinerator on the first floor of the building. I assumed that was when he somehow poured King's blood into a bucket before tossing the body down the chute. I hate to be blunt, but I could swear, that smeargle was painting the Sanctuary with the blood of a deceased fellow inmate. And there the smeargle was, grinning with twisted joy, reveling in his lifestyle of which had had its related activities previously stall since the deportation.

I considered telling the others what Easal's paint was composed of, but after staring at the smeargle more, I thought it'd be best to stay quiet. To be honest, I was just extrapolating based on an assumption I made, and maybe I was wrong. Maybe he was using red paint from the _studio_ and I was just about around the bend as I'll probably be in twenty years, when I'm senile and decrepit. But I freaking swore, that paint smelled awfully iron-like. So, the best way to find out for sure, rather than beating the truth out of the kid, was to creep to the bucket to see what its label had to say. When I got close enough, I saw the brand logo of a common paint, half of which was veering just out of my line of sight. I breathed out, both relieved and a little disappointed. But then it occurred to me that I wasn't satisfied just yet; still a little suspicious, I crept around until more of the bucket's label was visible.

_Cottage White_!? That's not a can of red paint, that's a can of _Cottage White _paint!

I quietly returned to my bed and complacently gazed at the smeargle until he stumbled backwards, dropping his wet tail on Babel's blanket, hacked loudly, and fled the room, disregarding me entirely. Then it was just me and Cereus for the rest of that day.

The war couldn't go on for longer, could it? I _knew_ I would be out of there soon. I told myself that everyday. And then we would all be back to normal. My claustrophobia wouldn't drive me to do unusual things, and maybe even Easal would recover and return to his comprehensible and organized painting-style.

I was both right and wrong. The war ended a few days later, going down in history as one of the shortest wars, and the shortest of world wars—at least, the war subsided in my region while there was still a slight degree of enmity among the rest of the world for months to come. However, Easel never reverted to his old state. In fact, I never saw most of the inmates after the war had ended ever again.

* Footnote:


	12. Ninth Entry

I was alone, as was expected, in the studio, with only my distant companion across the way to keep me company.

_Thanks again for the food. We owe you 1._

I squinted at the breloom's message, wondering if I was reading it correctly. He put it down and gave me a concerned look. after a moment I began writing.

_Who's WE?_

_Me and my owner. Don't you know?_

King would have been incensed to know our food was being shared with _two_ strangers, I quietly remarked with a disdainful sneer. I didn't bother telling the breloom about our group's first casualty, though the breloom would probably have been glad to know the charmeleon, who had insulted him via paper message, was now decomposing at the bottom of a chute. Instead we talked about more uplifting topics. That was, until his "owner" appeared next to him from the murkiness beyond the glass, giving me a start. The girl's hair was black with a few white stripes running down it. Only one of her eyes was visible, the glint from the window obscuring its color. I watched as the breloom pointed me out. With an approving nod, she thanked me wordlessly.

"I don't know why we're feeding someone who's not benefitting us in away way in return." The zoroark approached me with her arms folded in contempt.

"It's not about whether we get something in return, it's about being generous and kind. Why are you down here?"

"Food run. Hold the fort while I'm gone." Tara paused to retie her shoelaces. She looked up at me and hesitated before saying, "On second thought, leave that to the more responsible of people." With that, she exited the room, not looking back.

Something, some tendon in my brain, must have snapped, because I twitched and suddenly felt an unknown force wash over my whole, which got me seeing red—like a thin gloss of blood enveloping my pupils. I felt my teeth grind against each other and my paws curl into fists. My retinas drilled through the doorway she had gone through, fueled by hatred and composed of red, watery fury. I was fed up with living in such a small space, being ruthlessly antagonized by these foul inmates, and what for? King was destined to die the second he talked back, the second he retorted, the second he deemed himself the alpha of the same group he was clearly too damn ignorant to handle.

That was the day I almost snapped and finished what I had started (with King).

Summer must have come into the room and seen my face, because she lunged towards me with a box cutter and attempted to drive it through my neck. The blade only ran along the side of my throat, barely missing my jugular. I would have snapped, I really would have. You think I'd kill her then and there, but the thing is, my bloodthirsty, carnage-craving alter-ego had dissipated and was replaced with an overwhelming fear. I frantically got to my feet and leaned against one of the workstations, paw clutching my neck. I stared at the luxray in horror, hoping my expression looked genuine enough for her to cease, but she lurched forward and lashed at me again, this time cutting only through my shirt.

"Stop!" I cried. "Please!"

Energy was visibly coursing through her fur, making it jut out angrily here and there. She began making her approach again, this time with much heavier footsteps. I moved backwards until I was against the glass of the east wing's window. Between two workstations—and perpendicular to that, between the window and the luxray—I had nowhere else to run. So I just stood there, paws out in front of me, hoping I could deflect all her swipes away from my body, or even try to grab the box cutter from her. The tiny blade really wasn't that harmful, however I feared for my vulnerable throat and eyes.

Summer made her move. The blade made its way through the air until it met with my wrist, which successfully bashed it aside, only gaining a minor cut in the process. The box cutter hit the corner of the workstation to my left and fell to the floor with a clunk. Before I could reach it, Summer seized my shirt collar and pushed me against the glass, her face mere inches from mine. She was strong for her size. I stared at her incredulously before she began shaking me, causing the back of my head to forcefully slam into the glass. I cringed and endured it as best I could. In the meantime, my paws were trying to wrap around her arms, but her paws kept firm and merciless around the collar of my shirt.

My feet were in the air then, and Summer bared her teeth and shut her eyes tightly, seeming to have trouble exerted that much effort, but with a final peak of energy, she thrust my head backwards again, shattering all glass within the tiny, almost unnoticeable frame fortifying that portion of the entire window.

I closed my eyes as I felt the shards shower down on me. When the glass had all fallen, I slowly opened my eyes to see that Summer was still staring at me with her red and yellow, nearly stoic ones. A breeze ran through her charged fur, and for a moment, she lost her maniacal intimidation and became a graceful thing in the wind, sunlight bouncing off the glass that had settled on her shoulders.

The elegance suddenly disappeared when she growled, "This is for Kingston."

But before she could push me into my forty foot descent, her eyes widened and one of her ears twitched. After a moment, I began hearing a low drone far away. I dared to turn my head. In the distance, down the street, the horizon was speckled with a fleet of helicopters, on its way towards the town. I turned back to Summer, who blinked and recollected herself. She backed away from the window, dazed, like she was freed from her hypnotic spell, and released me. My legs melted into the floor, sending my body tumbling onto the workstation.

I breathed heavily and clung onto the workstation for dear life. Summer had other things on her mind.

"It's a good thing I didn't push you," she said, eyeing the horizon. "Else somebody would've seen a dead pokémon on the street and the broken window above." She sighed, physically worn from our scuffle. She averted her eyes from the window and put her foot between my legs. I flinched. With her foot she dragged the box cutter out from under me. Panicking, I reached out for the box cutter before she could do any further harm, but she stubbornly planted her other foot on my hand, causing me to yelp and recoil. She bent down and picked the rusted item up and proceeded down the aisle of workstations and towards the door. "I better tell the others. We wouldn't want the helicopters to see them through the windows up there." She paused and turned her head to my direction. "If you try to pull any stunts, just remember I have this," she warned, almost arrogantly, referring to her box cutter as if it was as powerful as a nuclear bomb.

I remained sitting there in the pile of glass, gazing out the window at the fleet dotting the distant sky.

_Our tussle had come to an abrupt stop when the helicopters came. Summer went and warned those who were upstairs at the time, and so each of us evacuated the Sanctuary, the library, and obviously the hardly concealing studio, and fled to the lowest part of the building to avoid being spotted by the humans piloting the helicopters. I remember Daemon saying something about the humans wanting to complete their little roundup process, so we had to be extra careful not to get caught._

_The basement, below the garage, is extremely musty and damp, and the flooring has cracked and corroded, revealing the dirt beneath. We'll be sleeping here for at least one night. None of us have ever been in the basement before. It's very oddly designed, in that it's, in a sense, a gigantic storm drain. There is a wide hole in the west half where the wall and ceiling meet, stretching from one side of the room to the other. Beneath is just a puddle of muddy water that hasn't evaporated since the last rainfall. Amidst all the mud, we made an unbelievable discovery..._

I had been lingering last in line on our way to the basement. When I entered, it was dark, but there were two rays of light that the rest of the group seemed to be gathering in. One beam was the storm drain in the wall, the other was the spot on the ground of which the storm drain opening had lit up.

"What... What is that thing?"

"Is it alive?"

"Qu'est-ce que ce? Et pourquoi sommes-nous dans ce grotte?"

"Hey, it kind of reminds me of Cact Stephens. What do you think, Cereus?"

As I slunk across the room, eager to see what the commotion was about, I caught a glimpse of a small, odd entity that had made itself at home amid the soil and sunlight. The crowd that had gathered around the little basement denizen knew what it was, I think, but they were all too awe-struck to consider such a ridiculous presumption—I wouldn't have had the slightest idea what the thing was, and had I not been so recently informed and enlightened through the use of encyclopedias and dated non-fictions, I wouldn't have achieved such a newfound understanding of former Earth and its involving phenomena; I immediately assumed the thing in the dirt was a sapling. I dismissed the thought soon after, as was to be expected in a situation concerning a blighted organism that had supposedly gone extinct long ago. But after I took a closer look, barging through the same crowd that had alienated me, with suddenly little trepidation left, I proclaimed, "That's a tree!" Out of the corner of my eye, I think I saw Cereus nod in agreement.

"...Fleance!"

"A tree!" I repeated, elated.

"No, your neck!"

"Huh?" I brought my paw up to inspect the damage done by the boxcutter again. Everyone watched as I toppled onto my rear, face flushed and perspiring from practically every pore. Half my shirt was completely drenched in a syrupy maroon. The cut in my neck, which I had neglected since the fight, had opened itself and revealed both snipped and unscathed tendons beneath my fur. Tai and Daemon came to my aid as the rest looked on in what was either sorrow or amusement. They looked from me to the sapling, flustered. "What are we gonna do with the tree?" I asked, on the brink of unconsciousness.

"There's no such thing as trees, Fleance," Tai stated, clearly in denial; her eyes would occasionally dart to the plant before returning to wearily scrutinize the mess festering on my neck. After a while, she grimly inquired, "Who did this to you?" I told her, and she swore to me, "Summer will pay." When she could handle the sight no longer, she forced Daemon to adopt her duties so she could retreat to observe the plant and take a breather. Daemon, being the stereotypical, macabre ghost, was able to tend to me and poke at my exposed muscle all he wanted.

I was bandaged up fairly quickly, thanks to the mismagius' dematerializing and transporting abilities. The zoroark never returned that day and was never seen or heard from again, and as the day continued, we heard the constant buzz of the helicopters above, keeping a sharp eye on the city below like titanic beedrills roaming the skies. That was the day I almost snapped.

* Footnote:


	13. Tenth Entry

I'll try to wrap the rest of this up as quick as possible (without disturbing the involved intensity, of course). I woke up around four o'clock the next day. I felt like there was a large sack of blood hanging limply from my neck. To my relief, the "sack" was merely just the poorly applied bandage, which was drenched in blood. Noting that the blood had all dried, I tugged at the bandage to ease its tension around my neck, since it had been kind of asphyxiating me. The bleeding had ceased and the cut had mostly healed. All that was left was a thin strip of exposed flesh fused with some of my fur.

For a moment, I wondered whether I had been asleep for more than just a night, because how could that skin have reattached itself so quickly?

I looked around the basement wearily. The sapling greeted me with a slight rustle. I arose, slunk over to it, and slumped down to inspect it. "So this is a...a real plant?" I said, lifting one of its leaves gently to see what was underneath. It _uncannily_ resembled Cereus' hand, and it was hard to believe that this little, nearly transparent thing was its own organism. How was it alive? I thought Cereus said the humans deforested everything. Perhaps the opening in the wall above allowed a sufficient amount of light for the plant, and maybe the dampness and mustiness of the basement also came into play.

After gazing at the sapling for a while, I climbed to my feet and made my way towards the entrance to the stairwell. As I was reaching out for the doorknob... _Thump-crack_! I looked about the room. I gave the sapling a suspicious glare. "What did you do?" I inquired. "Wait... Where is everyone?" I was alone and suddenly overcome with trepidation. I didn't know it was afternoon at the time, so the possibility that the inmates had all gone upstairs didn't occur to me. So, I assumed the odd plant had something to do with their absence , which, now that I'm recalling this minor ordeal, is very droll. I was about to go interrogate the sapling but I changed my mind and entered the stairwell.

While I was heading towards the attic, I kept ruminating about the sapling and the thumping noise it had spontaneously produced. Was it really a growing plant? Or was it a sinister species of pokémon that burrows underground and exposes its leafy hat to catch its prey's eye? I found myself hoping for the latter (It'd be nice to have some peace and quiet around here, I had thought, but mostly it'd be nice to have some peace). Disturbed by my own twisted thoughts, I forced myself out of my reverie and trudged onward.

When I reached the studio, mostly everyone was there. I blinked. They looked to me expectantly. I just feigned a good-morning smile and hastily made for the door on the opposite side of the room.

When I got into the Sanctuary, I uncovered my diary from beneath my shirt and lay down on my makeshift bed.

_Day ten of Confinement. Or is it day ten? I no longer have a sense of time. The sapling is still in the basement, but I guess everyone has forgotten about it. And since everyone is now upstairs once again, I guess they've all forgotten about the search raid, too. Maybe the humans_

My ears perked up at the sound of clanking glass. Mid-sentence, I stopped writing to investigate the noise. It was then that I noticed one of the attic's windows was open, being pushed into the slanted ceiling by the wind. Also, it was then that I noticed the absence of the grovyle. I got up and slowly approached the window. I looked for any human activity outside before deeming it safe enough to poke my head fully out the window. I gawked at the ground below. Fifty feet below, I could see two figures, one white and one green. I gasped. One of them was a human.

The other was Cereus.

The human was hovering over the grovyle and prodding it, astounded. Then he or she looked up and down the street, then towards the sky. We made eye contact. He or she jerked back, surprised, and suddenly booked it down the road. I breathed heavily. I clutched my throbbing head, unable to conceive what had happened—_not wanting_ to conceive what had happened!

Aestiva knocked softly on the door. "Fleance? Do you know where Tara is? And how're you—" I turned towards her and she choked on her words. "My! Your face! You look drained. I'll get a new bandage..."

"W-wait," I stammered.

She stopped. I could sense her apprehension. Her eyes slowly shifted to me, then to the window. "Where's Cereus...?"

I approached her, feeling my sweat run down my face. "Tai... You need to listen to me. You need to-you need to come." I was all wobbly and disoriented. Was it because of my suppurating neck wound? Or was it because of the imminent situation afoot?

"Fleance, what?"

"We need to hide. Come-come here." I slunk to the secret compartment behind the bookshelves. I quickly pushed all the books off the shelf.

"My, my. This building has all different kinds of secrets!"

I stumbled towards my bed and grabbed my book and returned to the niche. "Get in."

"Fleance, what the hell's gotten into you?" Tai asked.

"You need to get in," I asserted. She looked extremely concerned then. She slowly shook her head. She was visibly perspiring as well. Her distraught expression told me she was going to be stubborn when coaxing her into the niche, so I had to use the sentence none of us wanted to ever use since the beginning of the war: "They're coming."

Her auburn eyes became unresponsive. After a moment, she nodded, trembling, and quietly walked towards the bookshelf, where she knelt down and peered inside the niche. I got to my knees and rolled through the shelf and into the small space. Tai hesitated, then reluctantly crawled in after until she was partly on top of me. I reached outside the niche and pulled the shelve's former occupants back into their place, neatening them up and making it so no one would be able to see us—as long as we didn't make any movements. Minutes passed by. I could hear Tai's breathing slow and decrescendo.

Tai exhaled on my neck and began skeptically, "Fleance, _who_ exactly is coming?"

Then, I heard the door burst open, followed by a flurry of rapid footsteps and heavy breathing.

"How did they find us!?" I heard Babel's frantic voice.

I looked beyond the books and at the gang.

"Just keep it down," Alex whispered, who appeared to be, as usual, calm and collected when I looked at him from behind the blockade. "They don't know how to get to us."

Their eyes fluttered about disbelievingly, seeking some sort of emergency refuge or previously disregarded salvation in case "they" manage to breach the bookshelf below.

"But, if they know we're in here, then they _know_ we're in here."

"Christ. He has a point. They'll search until they find the passage and then us."

"The window! Look!"

I watched as Babel began climbing out the previously opened window. Another inmate grabbed his shirt and pulled him in. "Are you nuts? You'll fall!"

I could hear the muffled voices of people beneath the floorboards, yelling, "I hear something!" and "Hear that? Where could they be?" almost immediately followed by "Ah-hah! Those sneaky bastards!" Judging by the drastic change of their expressions, my fellow inmates could hear the people too.

"No... No... They couldn't have found us...that easily," Lily stuttered, in shock, kneeling and wrapping her hands around her head.

Everything was quiet, except for the clomping of boots on wood below. "Well," said Daemon, "it's been fun." He gave everyone a final look of sorrow before dissipating into the air.

Lily gasped and sprang to her feet—or her serpentine equivalents of. "No! You get back here!" she shrieked, groping frantically at the empty air where the ghost once was.

"Guys," Alexander intervened. The chaos stopped momentarily as everyone looked to the wise blaziken with desperate, awaiting eyes. Alex scanned the group before stating, "We're pokémon. They're humans. Don't you see? We can fight them."

"...Hey, yeah!" Babel cheered and assumed his fighting stance, staring eagerly at the door.

But when the humans finally arrived, they had weapons of their own, and the inmates were at mercy to them all the less. The inmates were escorted out, seemingly having accepted their fate, while Tai cried softly into my chest, clutching my shoulders hopelessly. I hung on to her tightly in what felt like the longest embrace I've ever experienced, and then, just like that, everyone was gone forever.

After we were sure everyone had left, we crawled out of the niche and roamed the derelict building aimlessly for about ten minutes. My mentality torn beyond repair, I gave up on hoping the war would end soon and decided I wanted to plant the sapling in the courtyard, as a final tribute to all pokémon, alive or dead.

I uprooted the sapling—a hard excavation for my extremely feeble paws to pull off—and climbed the stairwell to the ground floor, where I heard someone rapidly beating on the entrance to the courtyard. Through the door's window, I could see the breloom's owner peer in, then continue to beat the door. Apparently, she hadn't noticed me. The glaceon appeared next to me and greeted me with a weary nod. I opened the door for the breloom's owner.

"You!" she gasped. "Are you okay? We could see from our window... Who did they take?" Despite her frantic verbalization, the black and white-haired lady maintained an apathetic expression, with a nearly imperceptible hint of concern.

"Everyone but us and Daemon, I guess," I answered, brushing past her. The air, as usual, was very rejuvenating.

"Fleance, what're you doing with the tree?" Tai asked. "We should get inside."

"I just want to plant it." As I dug a little hole in the center of the courtyard, I noticed the breloom watching me from the window of the door on the opposite side of the building. He opened the door and came outside to give my handiwork a look.

"That's a tree," he was the first time I had heard his voice.

"Yeah, found it in the basement. I think it deserves to be planted in a better, less dreary spot before we leave."

The four of us sat on the grass for a bit, silently observing the sapling's every subtle movement.

"That's a real shame," said the breloom's owner. "I'm so sorry."

Tai and I nodded.

After another moment of silence, the breloom said, "You know... Maybe I can help the tree a little, you know?" He took off his mittens, revealing a plethora or nasty-long claws. He dug them into the soil near the sapling and looked intently at the plant as it began to rustle and shake. His eyes widened. The sapling sprouted and grew thicker. Its stem became brown and hard as the leaves lengthened and rose into the air. The stem stretched and widened in very fluid movements until it was no longer a stem, but a trunk. "It's working!" the breloom cried in disbelief. The smooth wood of the trunk texturized and became more defined and coarse as dark, emerald-green veins became visible inside the semitransparent leaves. The sapling was soon a massive pillar, towering over us like an ancient menhir. I've never seen something as beautiful as that tree. Yes, it was a tree. I don't know how, but it was a real, palpable tree! And I was proud.

"H-hey! You guys! I found extras! A human and three pokémon in the courtyard. Get your asses down here quick—buh. Ay? What in the...?"

"I guess they found us quicker than I expected," I spoke softly, refraining from turning to look at the approaching humans. The breloom gave me a drowsy, discomforted stare. He looked withered, as if his body had been sucked away, drained during the tree's maturation process. But he smiled regardless, as did his owner. "I'm glad we planted this before they got us," I whispered, tearing up slightly. Feeling a sense of content, I turned around, eyes closed, prepared to embrace the bullets of their disciplining weapons with arms spread apart.

But when the humans had swarmed the courtyard, they had all stopped where they were and gawked at what stood behind us, aghast. They didn't take us, they just stood there, no longer aware of us. After talking with one another, they concluded what the titanic entity was, and some of them broke into tears. Some brushed past us and had to touch it to make sure it was real. One man looked at us and said, "Did you...?"

The breloom nodded.

"That's unbelievable... How!"

It was like their hostility just faded away, and was replaced with a flood of emotions. Ten days. That's about how long the war lasted in our region. It took an additional twenty days to rehabilitate the region and replace the empty soils with flourishing trees. It took a month before the oxygen-producing machines were removed, five months for everything to settle down, and a year and a half for the war to officially end world-wide. I don't know how that sapling had survived, but its growth put the pokémon extermination to a permanent halt.

* Footnote:

[Epilogue]

I place the sixteen-thousand words on the counter and give them a brief, final look over with my sleep-deprived eyes. I nod complacently, place the papers between my paws and neaten them up before stapling them together. My diary lays on the counter, opened to the final pages of my entries. I take in a raspy breath and can feel my throat tighten. I promised myself I wouldn't cry, not after everything was over. I fight back the tears unwillingly and stand from my chair.

"Are you done?" I hear from behind me.

"I think so."

"Oh, Fleance, I'm so proud. Do you think the tabloid will like it?"

"At this point, they'll take anything and publish it, as long as it's primary information from a primary source. And they'd appreciate it even more if it's in story format, so I think it'll be fine. I'm leaving to give it to them now."

"But, I was about to leave for...therapy. I was hoping you'd take care of the egg."

"Uh?"

"Oh, I'll stay then. Your story is far more important." Aestiva, the glaceon, walks up to me, on the verge of tears. I pull her into a hug and we remain that way for a minute, before I kiss her on the forehead and let go.

"We're going to make it down in history, in every history book out there: Aestiva and Fleance," I guarantee.

She smiles weakly. I walk to the front door, stack of paper in hand, and give Tai a reassuring grin before walking out of our flat and into the rejuvenating air.

50' In the Air:

The Diary of Fleance

* * *

A/N: Just a quick thank-you for all those who lent their OCs: Thank you FinalPower for submitting the breloom (whose name was Cao), Decapoda for submitting Daemon and other minor characters, as well as helping me with grammar along the way, and Moon (guest) for submitting Cao's owner (whose name was Bri). I'll add a more official citation on my profile whenever I'm not lazy.

For those of you who recently stumbled upon this story, a chapter, chapter 10 I think, had been deleted. I've added that, so if you felt confused when chapter 9 suddenly transitioned to chapter 11, you may go back and read chapter 10 now, just for giggles I guess. Why did I delete chapter 10 you ask? I didn't, my sister did. A shout out to my sister, if you're reading this, I'm okay with you logging into my account, but please use my account only to read, and NOT post your freaking weird reviews on people's stories, and especially don't futz with my stories. Thank you.

Anyway, for those of you who enjoyed the story, I won't stop you from sharing it to your friends ;) Thanks for reading, and have a good summer.  
-Cal


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